Welcome to our blog series—At the Table: Baptist Fight Hunger! Part 3 of this series is by Ryan Tucker, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Orangeburg, South Carolina.

By Ryan Tucker

First Baptist Orangeburg, S.C., has a mission to build a community that glorifies God and reflects Jesus Christ.

One way we—as a church—hope to accomplish our mission is to embody Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat…”

At FBC Orangeburg we are constantly looking for new ways to engage our church family in missional opportunities. It is our expectation that each member is active in worship, discipleship, missions and giving.

These principles are at the core of what we seek to accomplish as a church. Addressing the basic hunger needs of our community allows a significant group of our family of faith to connect missionally as they live out Jesus’ own words in the Gospel of Matthew.

For many years we have held a Thursday Soup Kitchen in our fellowship hall, where we feed 100-140 people each week. It is part of a community-wide effort in which six churches band together to offer a meal Monday through Saturday.

The success of this ministry encouraged our church to branch out into other hunger-based ministries.

During the fall of 2012 we began making plans to start a garden with the purpose of “Growing Food and Growing People.” Our church owns tennis courts—which had not been used in years. While standing on these courts last fall with a few key leaders, God began to shape a vision where FBC Orangeburg would re-image what was once a successful recreation ministry into a new and exciting avenue to connect God’s people to a missional endeavor.

We started God’s Garden Orangeburg by building 28 4×8 garden boxes, which we encouraged church members and Sunday morning Bible study groups to adopt and care for during the growing season.

We also enlisted a team of over 100 prayer partners who prayed specifically for the garden each day of the growing season. This team of willing workers and prayer warriors allowed us to have a successful first season growing zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, green beans, okra, corn, tomatoes and radishes, which we were able to use not only in our own soup kitchen but throughout our community at the other area church soup kitchens.

God blessed our garden and helped us to fulfill the garden’s mission of growing food as well as helping people to grow spiritually by being engaged missionally.

We have plans to expand God’s Garden Orangeburg to 56 4×8 boxes and will be planting potatoes and the likes this winter. We are praying that God uses our tennis court garden to produce 1000s of pounds of food to share with our community.

The benefit for our church is simple. As FBC Orangeburg connects tangibly to this mission of service, we bring glory to God and reflect Jesus Christ into our community—allowing us to fulfill our mission.

Click here for more information and pictures.

See additional information below about the state of hunger in Orangeburg County, S.C., courtesy of Map the Meal Gap, a project of Feeding America. Check out statistics for your area with this interactive online tool.